Cascadia Daily, Dec. 6, 2018

Now online at Cascadia Magazine: hiking Portland’s Forest Park

In Craig Romano’s latest Get Outside! column at Cascadia Magazine, he takes us to one of most fascinating trails in Portland’s Forest Park: the Balch Creek Gulch trail. You’ll find old-growth Douglas-fir, waterfalls, and a mysterious stone cabin. Read more online here.

WA supreme court rules against limits on supervised injection

According to the Seattle Times, the Washington supreme court ruled that local initiatives aimed at stopping county funding for a supervised injection site in Seattle were invalid. The city will likely open a mobile site sometime in 2019. For more on how supervised injection sites save lives, read this recent feature in Cascadia Magazine.

Vancouver passes new renter protections

The Georgia Straight reports that the Vancouver city council has passed a measure that makes it harder for landlords to evict tenants after renovations. Meanwhile, the Stranger notes that a recent report states the obvious: single-family zoning is forcing out people of color and low-income renters. Meanwhile Bend, Oregon changed its zoning to make it easier to build duplexes and triplexes. And the Seattle suburb of Renton is looking to ease rules on backyard cottages.

Blocking a gas pipeline in BC

350 Seattle reports on the Unist’ot’en Camp in northern BC, a First Nation protest site that’s attempting to block the huge Coastal GasLink pipeline which would carry fracked natural gas to an export terminal at Kitimat. National Observer has more on the complicated court case involving the camp. The Observer also looks at pipeline construction “man camps” and their connection to rising incidence of assault on Indigenous women.

Trump administration policies could threaten OR sage grouse

The Trump administration announced plans to roll back limits on oil exploration and cattle grazing in greater sage grouse habitat, which could have impacts on the threatened birds in eastern Oregon, OPB reports. National Geographic has more on the awkward birds and their elaborate mating rituals, and how they’re at the center of a fight over public lands.

A surf shop in Washington?

It may surprise you that Washington’s Pacific Coast is a popular surfing destination, but if you’ve got a wetsuit, then it’s hang-ten all winter. KNKX has a report on Westport’s Surf Shop, a gathering spot for cold water surfers.

New poetry collection looks at transgender transformation

BC BookLook has a detailed review of Vancouver poet Onjana Yawnghwe’s new collection of poems, The Small Way, which explores what happened when her husband decided to become a woman.
We watch each other
from either side of the pole now,
your demeanour equatorial,
neither north or south.”

Poetry by Dujie Tahat

Over at Nashville Review, you can read Seattle poet Dujie Tahat’s “Salat Departing LAX the Week After an Attempted Terrorist Attack,” a look at the humiliation of air travel if you’re not white. “I don’t know my gate or row or seat number or a combination of words to make TSA trust me this time…”


Read the full poem here. That’s tonight’s edition of Cascadia Daily. Thanks for reading! –Andrew Engelson

Photo credits: greater sage grouse by Bureau of Land Management (public domain)